(This podcast is part of our National Book Awards coverage for 2007, in which five bloggers are attempting various journalistic experiments using unusual technological methods. For more posts and other tomfoolery, keep checking under this category.)
People on This Podcast: Jonathan Franzen
Click to listen: (MP3)
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
You two share exactly the same voice. What gives? Are you and Jonathan Franzen the same person?
Wow. That was David Brent-level awkward.
I’m scared to listen now.
the interviewer sounds like a fool…..not funny and meaningless……surprised franzen bothered to try to engage…..
I can understand why he reacted the way he did. Ed, you do sound kind of manic.
I agree, the interviewer does sound like a fool. I hope he isn’t really a fool.
Good Kirk, meet evil Kirk.
It reminded me of the overactive pre-awards show interviewers when they bombard actors with quesitons devoid of context. I don’t think Ed was being mean, or not intentionally so, but in Franzen’s shoes, when someone out of the blue asks about something unrelated to the evening at hand, I think it’d be a little jarring.
Yeah, I’ve gotta go with manic, I’m afraid.
Third vote here for manic. Franzen sounded like he had a stick stuck somewhere, though.
Why would Franzen want to accept a friend invitation from what in this clip sounds like the voice of spam?
The conversation started out fairly well. Franzen seemed to handle the first question ok. Asking about Facebook at the NBA event is somewhat out of context but he sounded like he didn’t get too flustered until Ed asked him why he joined Facebook in the first place. At that point things seemed to change abruptly but it’s hard to tell exactly what happened.
Ed – was there some kind of body language/facial expression thing that happened that doesn’t come across on the audio. Because after that question he gets irrational and you do a good job of restraining your desire to go off on him.
That was kinda excruciating.
Ed–do you work for Facebook or something?
Just kidding. I thought the whole blogging at the NBAs was pretty spectacular. The Hitchens interview was especially good. I was going back and forth on my computer from your coverage there to the other NBA (basketball scores)!
Was that Tucker Carlson interviewing? Blech!